Nansen passport

Nansen passports are internationally recognized identity cards first issued by the League of Nations to stateless refugees. Designed in 1922 by Fridtjof Nansen, in 1942 they were honored by governments in 52 countries. Approximately 450,000 Nansen passports were issued, helping hundreds of thousands of stateless people to immigrate to a country that would have them.

The Nansen passport was developed after the Russian Revolution, when 1.4 million Russians escaped Russia in fear of the Communist government. Hundreds of thousands of them stayed permanently abroad.

It was a great successs, one of the few that could be attributed to the League of Nations.

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